Thai Yoga Therapy for Your Body Type: An Ayurvedic Tradition [Paperback]

Kam Thye Chow (Author), Emily Moody (Author), David Frawley (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 26, 2006

A form of Thai Yoga Massage that focuses on the three Ayurvedic body types

• Explains how to determine a person’s Ayurvedic body type and provides hands-on techniques for working with them

• Brings the practices presented in Thai Yoga Massage to a new customized level of therapeutic healing

The traditional healing arts of Ayurveda and Thai Yoga Massage have a deep and integrated relationship that provides an unparalleled modality for restoring body, mind, and spirit. Although it originated in India, over the centuries Ayurveda has been assimilated into the predominant Thai culture and has evolved into a distinctive folk medicine. With the growing popularity of Ayurveda and Thai Yoga Massage, there is a renewed interest in reuniting these practices into a powerful therapeutic alliance.

Thai Yoga Therapy for Your Body Type bridges the practice of Thai Yoga Massage with its ancient Ayurvedic roots to offer a complete and holistic healing modality. The authors first explain in detail the fundamental principles of Ayurveda and then recommend daily practices for each of the three main body types of vata, pitta, and kapha. Practitioners learn how to customize their work with the appropriate massage approach, recommended yoga asanas, breathing techniques, and diet and lifestyle tips. More than 50 illustrated, full-body Thai Yoga Massage postures are presented as well as a massage flow for each body type. The authors indicate the Ayurvedic benefits of each posture and detail any precautions that should be followed in this dynamic practice of transformative healing.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"I found this book to be well-written, easy to understand and follow, and of interest to those practitioners who may wish to expand their practice, as well as those individuals wishing to become a client of a Thai Yoga pratitioner."
(Bonnie Cehovet, Angelfire, Aug 2006 )

Thai Yoga Therapy for Your Body Type presents a thorough and practical exploration of this healing practice. It is highly recommended for all consumer health information collections, particularly those with a focus on complementary and alternative medicine.
(Susan Murray, Consumer Health Information Service, Toronto Reference Library, Toronto, Canada )

From the Back Cover

HEALTH / BODYWORK

Thai Yoga Massage is a dynamic bodywork therapy in which the practitioner guides the recipient through a series of yoga postures while palming and thumbing along the body's energy lines and pressure points. Together these actions result in a treatment that relieves muscular tension, improves circulation, boosts the immune system, and balnaces the body energetically. This unique transformative healing system, which is growing in popularity in the Western world, originated in the temples of Thailand many centuries ago as a blend of yoga, Ayurveda, and martial arts.

In Thai Yoga Therapy for Your Body Type, Kam Thye Chow, one of the foremost practitioners of Thai Yoga Massage and the author of the book and DVD Thai Yoga Massage, and coauthor Emily Moody show how to tailor the practice to the individual needs of each recipient through the application of Ayurvedic principles. The three basic body types described by Ayurveda--vata, pitta, and kapha--each have different physical attributes and energetic needs that respond differently to each Thai Yoga Massage posture. Practitioners learn the Ayurvedic benefits of each posture as well as breathing techniques, diet and lifestyle tips, and the precautions that should be followed to adapt their massage approach to best meet the needs of their clients. More than 50 illustrated, full-body Thai Yoga Massage postures are presented as well as a complete massage flow for each body type.

KAM THYE CHOW, author of Thai Yoga Massage and Tai Chi Chuan: Mindfulness in Motion, is the founder and director of the Lotus Palm School in Montreal. EMILY MOODY is an Ayurvedic educator, yoga instructor, and teacher for the Lotus Palm School and has worked closely with Kam Thye since 1999.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Healing Arts Press; 1 edition (June 26, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892811846
• ISBN-13: 978-0892811847
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #283,385 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thai Yoga Therapy for Your Body Type: An Ayurvedic Tradition, July 18, 2006

By 

Michael Shandler (Amherst, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Thai Yoga Therapy for Your Body Type: An Ayurvedic Tradition (Paperback)

This is a terrific book and groundbreaking. To my knowledge, it's the first time Ayurveda and Thai Yoga have been connected and revealed to have the same roots. It is both a course in the principles of Ayurveda and a course in Thai yoga massage and it brings them together to create a wonderfully synergistic and flexible therapeutic modality, easily adaptable to various constitutional types. Anyone who learns this system is enriching herself and raising her healing potentiality immensely. As both a student and teacher of Ayurveda and Thai Yoga, I find this book easy to understand and, most importantly from a practioner's point-of- view, highly practical. Thanks, Kam Thye and Emily!

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly A Wonderful Book, September 28, 2006

By 

Shai Plonski - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Thai Yoga Therapy for Your Body Type: An Ayurvedic Tradition (Paperback)

For anyone who is familiar with the teachings of Kam Thye Chow and the Lotus Palm School and who believe in the evolution of Thai Yoga Massage as truly one of the best things you can do for both you the massage therapist, and the client you will love this book.

This book opens doors for Thai Yoga Massage to the yoga, ayurveda and general community because it grounds the practice in easy to understand yet deeply penetrating and time honored principles of Asian/Indian medicine. Simply put it inspires and teaches you how to give incredible Thai Yoga Massage and further shows your clients how they can take all the wonderful benefits and incorporate them into their everyday life.

It has made a very noticiable difference in my practice, because it gives me a strong foundation to understand why I choose to use certain postures with certain clients, and why I put some aside. It has helped me to channel my intention and energy in such a way that at the end of the massage my clients will relate to me how they have benefited from the experience, and it almost matches word for word the thoughts in my head for what I was hoping to accomplish with my session.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Thai Massage, and when you combine this with Kam Thye's first book that relates to Thai Massage in a more classical sense, you start to have a more complete picture of the vision that Thai Massage is a complete wellness system.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not true to Thai tradition, January 3, 2009

By 

Della M French "dmf" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thai Yoga Therapy for Your Body Type: An Ayurvedic Tradition (Paperback)

It is unfortunate that this book attempts to portray traditional nuad boran (Thai massage) as being inextricably woven into the Ayurvedic medicine of current day India. This is simply not true. Traditional Thai massage developed within a unique system of medicine indigenous to, and practiced only in, Thailand.

While there is reason to believe that ancient Ayurvedic medicine influenced early Thai medicine, it is also clear that the Thai traditional medicine system incorporated aspects of early Buddhist medicine as well as indigenous Thai beliefs. The Thai medicine system utilizes native medicinal plants, many of which are not used in India, and the way in which diagnoses (doshas) are carried out in Thailand in order to treat illnesses is different than the way it is done in current day Indian Ayurvedic medicine. Mr Chow, with this book, misrepresents traditional Thai massage and Thai medicine, and instead transmits a mishmash of Sanskrit terms and Ayurvedic concepts to his students and to the general public, claiming that they are Thai when they clearly are not.

Mr. Chow has misrepresented Thai massage at other times in his courses and books. The basic sequence that he and his "Lotus Palm" students teach, for example, begins in seated position, but this is not the way Thai massage is practiced in Thailand, nor does it represent the way that Thai massage has evolved over the years. Beginning at the feet in supine position is one of the most integral and important aspects of a Thai therapy session, since it allows the therapist to remove blockages in a systematically holistic way, beginning with the feet, onward to the lower and upper torsos, and eventually finishing with the head. Chow's own teacher, the late Asokananda, was continually upset because of the way Chow performed and taught Thai massage over the years.

In this book and others, Chow misrepresents Thai tradition in that he teaches Sanskrit terminology, mantras and other Ayurvedic concepts and associates them with Thai massage. Why claim, for example, that the traditional gesture one makes with hands clasped together before and after a Thai massage is called a "namaskar" (a Sanskrit term), when it is actually called a "wai" or "wai khru" in Thai language? Why teach Sanskrit mantras when there are traditional Thai supplications that fall wholly within Thai tradition? Chow must know these things, yet he deliberately chooses to misrepresent Thai tradition by using alien terms and incorporating foreign elements into his "Lotus Palm method." To some, this is nothing short of insulting to Thai tradition, to Thai culture, and to those of us who wish to dignify traditional Thai healing arts.

Simply put, this book contains false and misleading information. Don't buy it if you expect to learn about traditional Thai massage.
DmF